Monday, September 8, 2014

Crew Sign Austrian Defender, Cap Space Estimate

The Columbus Crew announced the signing of Austrian Defender Emanuel Pogatetz today. No official details on the deal but on his personal website it is was noted that he will be top five defender in salary (that tidbit seems to be taken down).

Not a lot of mystery to players these days. Outside of the amount of video and access online, you also have armies of video game ratings and analysis.

Pogotetz is a solid defender and has been brought in to fill the hole that Giancarlo Gonzalez left when he successfully transferred to Palermo last month. He's not as young as Gonzalez or will he fetch a future transfer fee, he will, however, keep goals from happening better than most replacement level MLS defenders. He also brings a mountain of experience to the team.

His exact salary isn't known but we can estimate it to be in the $300k range. Pogotetz was out of contract so it's reasonable to assume there was not transfer fee (allocation) involved. With the addition, the Crew are likely return to around $400k in free cap space (that's 2014 MLS cap space, anyway. Reports, as well as my estimates, have the 2015 cap space increasing modestly to $5 million from the $3.1 it is now).

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A player like this is a good signing for a MLS team. Depending on his adjustment period he should be adding a degree of toughness to the Crew back line. He's certainly got a couple good years in him and is a couple steps above current options if looking less immediate and more 12-18 months.

In other words, a player like Pogatetz keeps you out of the bottom of the league.

Finally, now that the Crew have filled the hole Gonzalez left they should be moving on to Forwards.